Background: Dirk Heinrichs is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Transport Research of the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), where he currently coordinates a DLR research initiative on Transport and the Environment. Between 2005 and 2010 he led the Risk Habitat Megacity project, a collaboration of the German Helmholtz Association, Universities in Latin America and the UN ECLAL with a focus on urban sustainable development in the region. His research concentrates on the governance of suburban development in Latin America and Europe. Dirk is further working on urban adaptation to climate change. In this capacity, he is a member of several climate networks such as the Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN) and the Urbanization and Global Environmental Change (UGEC) core project of the International Human Dimensions Programme (IHDP). He teaches in International Urban Development Courses at the Berlin Technical University and the Vietnamese-German University in Ho Chi Minh City.